


the far-flung battle line

by synecdochic



Series: mezzanine [6]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Character Death, Coming Home From The War, Imported, Offscreen character death, Panic Attacks, Physical Disability, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-06
Updated: 2008-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-31 04:50:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6456592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/synecdochic/pseuds/synecdochic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>They're here today to pay their respects to the ghosts of all the things that made them.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	the far-flung battle line

**Author's Note:**

> (Originally [posted](http://synecdochic.dreamwidth.org/195036.html) 2008-03-06.)
> 
> We wrote the same story from three different points of view; this is Cammie's.
> 
> Title from Rudyard Kipling's [Recessional](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recessional_\(poem\)). Set in 2015.

The _one_ goddamn problem with the fact that their motherhumping house security system was designed by a paranoid son of a _bitch_ (practical and prepared, JD insists on instead; it's Thing #247 they've fought about recently) is that it's damn near impossible to keycard yourself through both office doors _and_ get your palm down on the handprint sensor _and_ get your retinas scanned _and_ remember (much less type in) your goddamn twenty-character password of letters, numbers _and_ symbols -- mixed-case -- when your goddamn hands are full. She generally copes by holing up in the office and sending JD out through the Iron Curtain every time she wants something they don't have in stock in the office itself. 

But today's one of those days where she'd just as rather _shoot the fucking bastard_ as talk to him, or IM with him, or email him, or even so much as _think about communicating with him in any goddamn way_ , so when she realized he'd finished the last bottle of water (and it's worth her goddamn _life_ to raid the bunker for replacements and don't she know it, not that she'd think of doing so), she'd sighed, keyed out of the office, keyed out of the downstairs complex, re-armed the door behind her, and taken herself up the _goddamn cunting_ stairs (elevator's out; JD can't fix it, which means it's bad; the servicepeople will be here tomorrow).

So: up the stairs, into the laundry room, which is where they keep the pallets of bottled water (and they both feel guilty for contributing to the landfill problem, but the public water supply is overchlorinated by a factor of _twelve_ and sinking the well is next year's major improvement project), fill a mesh grocery bag with bottles, tie the handles together and heave it down the stairs ( _thud-thud-THUD_ ) and take herself on down behind it. Through door #1, through door #2, and what's behind door #3 but JD, on the phone, his eyebrows drawn together and looking damn unhappy.

"Yeah," he says, as she limps across the room to her desk. (Office suite has two private offices plus bathroom plus kitchenette, but it's only on worse days than this one that they aren't both ensconced on desks in the main room; too many years working on top of each other to be comfortable shutting themselves away.) "Arlington, right? Okay. I'll call you with our flight details. You can stay at the condo if you -- No, okay."

The bottom of her stomach drops out -- there's family in a double dozen hotspots right now -- but he doesn't look wrecked, just weary. He catches her looking at him, points at the headset he's wearing, fingerspells _Carter_. (Taught themselves ASL a few years back, not to keep from being overheard in public -- it's no more than token encryption, though they still use it -- but because visual speech processing won't crash either of their heavy-concentration states, while aural speech processing _will_.) She knows he means 'on the phone', not the one they've lost, so she signs back, _Who?_ He signs, _O'Neill._

And oh, _hell_. She's met Jack O'Neill six times in the past ten years (weird as snake shoes every time, because she keeps -- kept -- expecting him to be JD and he isn't -- _wasn't_ \--), but she's pretty damn sure JD's kept in touch better. And if the flights of angels have come to sing General O'Neill to his rest, she's not sure what it'll do to JD to know it.

But, time for revelations and soul-searching meditations later; things to tend to now. JD's nodding (never break him of that habit; she's convinced he thinks the people on the other end of the phone can _see_ him, never you mind that half the time they're on a video-enhanced teleconference uplink and people _can_ ) and she can just hear Sam's voice as a tinny buzz coming through the headset he's wearing. _When?_ she signs, and _Thursday_ he signs, and she nods and sits herself down at her laptop to book the travel.

She's holding the flights for his approval by the time he hangs up with Sam and scrubs a weary hand over his face. "Poor bastard," he sighs. "Dammit. Poor bastard. He should have had longer. He was talking about retiring."

She props her chin up on her hand, studies him, tries to figure out if it's a hugging time or a brisk-and-practical time. More the latter, she decides. "Medical?" she asks. (If it's something they need to know about, they'll deal with it as early as possible. JD and General Jack share the same DNA.)

But JD's shaking his head. "Carter couldn't say. Pretty sure she knows, but all she said was the bastard went down swinging. Good for him. It's how he always wanted to." 

Lots of people can claim to know another person's wishes, but JD's the only one who has absolute knowledge. And he looks peaceful -- sad, but not _grieving_ \-- and that's good enough for her to be peaceful about it, too. So she nods. "Holding seats on the first flight out in the morning, for two," she says. "Like to come along, if you'll have me."

He lets his hand drop from his face and nods. "Yeah. Yeah, that'd be okay." And she knows it for his version of _dear God, please_ , and clicks the button to buy the tickets.

Travel is a _goat-fellating bastard_ at the best of times, and this isn't the best of times, but they're old hats at it by now; they're in Washington five or six times a year, Beijing at least twice, always back to Black Mountain for Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter and they're setting out feelers in Tokyo this year. Cammie still refuses to take wheelchair assistance through the airport, though, no matter how much she hurts, and no airline does direct from COS to DCA, so they have to repeat the process of getting themselves plus their chattels from one end of an airport to the other at O'Hare (neither of them have been willing to check luggage since The Incident At Raleigh, few years back). By the time they're wheels-down at National ( _still_ not a pilot in the universe who'll call it Reagan, and Cammie's still a pilot where it counts) she's ready to pop off and mercifully _shoot herself_ , but she bites back the usual bitching; it doesn't seem respectful to trail curses behind her when they're coming for the funeral of the man her partner used to be. She just slings her carryon over her shoulder and collects the garment bag containing her dress uniform from the flight attendant with as much grace as possible.

"Gimme that," JD says, taking the carryon bag from her. She sighs. He's got his laptop bag _and_ his go-bag _and_ her laptop (and it isn't that they bought the condo in Pentagon City _just_ to have someplace to store enough of the necessities so they wouldn't have to check baggage, but it helps); he looks like some demented Christmas tree, with all the bags hanging off of him. (Neither one of them hold with wheeled luggage -- too easy to foul her cane in, and having to hold the handle _and_ the cane leaves her with zero hands free -- but JD keeps lecturing her about how she's not supposed to carry anything on her shoulders or her spine.) "Once more unto the breach."

"Brick up _your_ walls," she counters, and starts the slow and laborious process of getting herself up the jetway. 

Some asshole behind her is doing the thing where he dogs her heels to try to get her to move faster -- _yeah, you goatfucker, I'd love to_ \-- and she makes it three-quarters of the way up before Mister I'm So Goddamn Important I Can't Wait Thirty Goddamn Seconds makes an end-run. Usually isn't a problem. Usually, JD's got eyes in the _back of his goddamn head_ and can cut assholes off at the pass, but today he's a second too slow or asshole's a second too impatient or JD's just that critical bit too distracted. 

They've been traveling all day, and she's _goddamn tired_ (didn't sleep a lick last night; neither did JD, and that's why she didn't either; up all night snuggled up close and Not Talking About It) and sitting in an airplane seat always makes her feel like someone has replaced her hip joints with _napalm_ and dammit, she's out of goddamn practice. It isn't that JD is _always_ with her when she's out in the big wide world, there to give her the buffer zone against humanity; she's perfectly capable of navigating the world outside their safety-proofed (baby-proofed) little domain. She just wasn't _thinking_ of it, because there's JD, right next to her her, her wingman and her bodyguard (in the original sense; guards her body like it was his own) and her cushion and her padding. Asshole brushes her shoulder as he pushes past, and a hundred different factors all add up, and she can _feel_ she's going to stumble half a second too late to correct for it and down she goes.

She makes herself twist as she's falling -- _can't fall on the back can't fall on the spine oh God please let this not be the one_ \-- and cracks her head against the wall of the jetbridge. Sees stars, and the next thing she knows, JD's swearing in three languages at once and crouching next to her.

They've got _this_ routine down to a science too by now. He's got one hand up to stave off the inevitable oh-my-God-are-you-okay Good Fucking Samaritans, and the other one is pinching each of her ankles in turn (inside, outside): _still feel that?_ She gulps air and wiggles her toes (still there, at least all the ones she started with this morning) and tries to ignore her head and everything between her tits and her toes that's screaming at her (twisted the knee when she went down; might've popped the hip, can't tell). 

He waits until she nods, then rocks back on his heels and kicks the bags he dropped until they're out of her way. "No," he says, to the gawker who's being most insistent on wanting to call someone to take care. "No, she's fine, just give her room to get up."

They've got a hundred private rituals, and this is one of them, and she wishes _like fuck_ it didn't have to be. But wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up faster, so she sits with her knees up and her feet braced against the floor, and JD turns his foot sideways to brace it against both of her sets of toes, bends down to turn his arm into a grab-bar. She clasps both her hands around his forearm, and it's heave, ho, on our feet we go. He's checking her pupils; she can tell. 

"I am so goddamn sorry," he says, once she's vertical and (more or less) stable on her own two feet. 

Can't be mad at him. He's had a bad day. Worse than hers. "It's okay," she says. "I'm okay. C'mon. Holding up the line."

Still, she has to sit down at the boarding area to catch her breath and to fish out her drugs (and so JD can check her pupils in the better light, which she submits to with good grace, or at least as little ill-humor as she can manage right now) and as she does so, she catches herself wishing for the _goddamn millionth time_ that it didn't have to be all about goddamn _her_. Man deserves to be able to get lost in his own thoughts at a time like this without the universe layering on the guilt trip. It's not fair, and it's not right, and he doesn't begrudge it one inch but that doesn't make it any better. Maybe it makes it worse.

He's arguing with the airline employees who want to call a doctor for her, want them to fill out an accident report. (Fuck no. Too much time, too much hassle, and she knows JD is just fundamentally disinclined to leave a paper trail.) She's just thinking that maybe she'll take that wheelchair ( _shit-sucking donkey-raping scum-sucker of a thing_ ) down to the taxi stand anyway -- hates like blazes to be driven under someone else's power, and the pieces-of-shit the airport keeps on hand steer like whales and have armrests besides so they're impossible to push herself in, but it was a bad goddamn fall -- when JD apparently achieves victory. He comes back, picks up their bags, and starts re-balancing them. (Including her garment bag; apparently she's not going to be allowed to carry anything right now. When he gets in a whimsical mood, he says he's going to chuck the whole software thing, since _clearly_ it's not working out, and become her full-time Sherpa. She's damn certain that's way more offensive to the Sherpa people than it is to JD.) "Come on," he says. "Home stretch."

He reads her better than she can read herself, half the time; he waits until he's standing and then offers her his arm, on the side that isn't holding the cane, and she tucks her fingers in the crook of his elbow and leans as much of her weight on him as she needs to as they lock-step march through the terminal. 

Taxi drops them at the front door of the building (their car's in the garage; they'll use it while they're here, but they're not stupid enough to pay to park it in the airport lot and JD refuses to book car-and-driver in advance; paranoia again). She's sure to smile at Teo at the front desk, even when she doesn't want to; the building keeps a 24-hour concierge service on duty for anything and anything its residents might want, and both she and JD try not to be assholes. More locks, more paranoia -- elevator lock and the front door of their unit, airlock-foyer and another keycard and more scanners and more locks -- and she'd bitch about it if she hadn't been the one to help JD refine the building's already-incredibly-paranoid security and if she didn't _know_ what was out there to defend against (not petty crime, although that's probably part of the neighbors' motivation). It's annoying, and awkward, but it means they can sleep tight and not worry, so it's a small price to pay. She's naked and in the bathtub within five minutes of getting through the last lock. JD must take the time to hang up her blues, take out one of the suits he keeps in the closet here and set it out to air, but he's joining her within another fifteen.

Two tumblers in hand. He hands them over; she takes them and watches him strip off his clothes (faint sigh of relief; Washington in March and he'd be content to walk around naked and barefoot out there; she knows, from Sam, that Jack O'Neill never used to run this overheated, and she worries a little, but only where he can't see it). She sniffs at one of the tumblers as he climbs into the other half of the tub, water levels rising dangerously. Scotch. The good stuff.

"To Jack O'Neill," he says, when he's gotten settled and she's passed him his glass back. He holds it up. "Ten bucks says his last thought was 'thank God I'm not going to have to be the one to write this report'."

As epitaphs go, it's not a bad one. "To Jack O'Neill," Cammie says, and clinks glasses with him. 

He drains his down in a single gulp (no way to treat good Scotch, but there's a time and there's a place) and sets it aside. Then he closes his eyes and shudders, once, all the way straight through. When he opens his eyes again, they're calm, and he's set aside whatever thing that's been riding him all day. "And now I can tell you the rest of the stories," he says. "Now that I'm not giving away anyone's secrets but my own."

Because, yeah. Her baby has a strict and unstinting definition of 'fair', and part of it includes not telling tales on anyone, even himself-not-himself. Close on ten years she's been living with him, working with him, all up in his life and in his space and in his everything, and she's had to piece together most of it by guesswork and inference and clues and hints and trusting her read on him. Some things he hinted at, and some things he told her once -- in the dark -- because she needed to know, and some things she knows because they couldn't have been any other way. But now he starts at the beginning and tells them straight on through to the end (calm and clear and unemotional), and none of it comes as a surprise (she knew; he knows she knew) but she can tell it comes as a _relief_. To be able to say it. He trusts her and he loves her and she was already behind all his doors. Now he's giving her the blueprints to the fortress he's constructed.

Takes a day and a half (talking into the night, falling asleep twined together the way they always do, waking up and having breakfast and picking straight up where he left off, and she doesn't say a word through any of it, doesn't ask any questions or steer him down any side-streets, just sits and nods and she'll listen as long as he wants, _needs_ , to talk). By the end of it, she's convinced of two things: one, her baby is a better man, a stronger man, than she'd even suspected (and she'd already set the bar so goddamn high). Two, the man they're burying tomorrow is a genuine goddamn American hero, from the beginning to the end, and the world's a lesser place for having lost him.

She never forgets, not once, that there's seven decades locked up behind her partner's eyes. (Not even when she thinks he _might_.) Never has, never will. She hopes Jack O'Neill could look at what JD made -- of himself, of _themselves_ , proxy and second-chance and starting-over and all the things they always wanted to be -- and been proud and pleased with the reinvention. He was, she thinks. Love, there, and gratitude; appreciation and fondness and understanding and care. Going both ways. 

Thursday morning dawns cold and clear, and they're up and moving with the dawn, same as always. Cammie makes breakfast; JD reads the interesting pieces of their Google News alerts out loud to her while she does the prep work. Laptops over food for both of them: email and blogroll and always that temptation for _just five minutes_ of banging on the problem that's driving them batshit (this year's Big Contract is three-dimensional facial recognition software designed for use in sub-optimal conditions; what's out there is okay, but not good enough). They behave, though. Instead, after breakfast, JD piles the dishes in the sink (the one time she'll relax her rules; usually the dishes have to be clean as soon as the meal's done with, else she knows they'll both _leave them to rot_ when they get caught up in something) and they move to the bedroom to get ready.

She pauses at the door to the closet, fingering the zipper of the garment bag hanging there, and thinks: once upon a time, she thought she'd wear this uniform for the rest of her adult life.

Always knew she was bound for the Air Force (her daddy's daughter, clear on through and straight down to bone). Things to fly and people to protect and her country to stand up for, and she'd been born into a world where Vietnam and the evening news had already turned the hearts and minds of so many people against what she always knew was her honor and her privilege ( _hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today_ and _you can be the first one on the block to have your boy come home in a box_ ), but she'd stood up and she'd raised her hand and she'd counted herself blessed to have been raised by a family that paid that nonsense no nevermind. The time had come and the day had dawned ( _let the sun shine in_ ) when they'd told her they needed her -- her skills, her talents -- and she hadn't stood up again and said yes, because she'd already been on the move. 

And when the dust settled and the snow cleared, when she'd counted up the price and found it steep indeed, she'd spent a long and lost time wishing she'd never set her feet on that road, and she'd spent a long damn time thinking she'd failed -- failed her country, failed her oath, failed her daddy's teaching and her own bone-deep beliefs -- because she couldn't get back up and keep on going. Couldn't carry on the way she'd started, couldn't find some other way to serve. It had taken JD to teach her that sometimes it was all right to redefine yourself. They taught each other. And now, standing at the end of it, she can turn back around and look at the roads she's walked to get here, and know that she might snarl at her life's current inconveniences and hate every goddamn minute of dealing with the aftermath's pain, but if you dropped her back down in the 302 bay and told her she'd earned a do-over, she'd do the exact same thing ten times over again and never count the cost. 

Her past defines her. It doesn't cripple her. All it does is make it harder for her to walk.

So Cammie undoes the zipper of the garment bag, and she stares the badges and insignia straight in the face, and she thinks that she'll be proud to wear this uniform for Jack O'Neill. (Man she never really knew. Man she knows as well as she knows herself.) And JD knows; JD always knows; he can read her thoughts as well as he can read his own. From behind her, he says, "Let me help you with that."

She unbelts her robe and lets it slip from her shoulders, hangs it carefully up on the closet door-hook. (Can't drop it on the floor. Too much of a danger.) And she pulls out a bra and hooks it, carefully, and then steps back and holds up her arms. Can do this herself. Doesn't need the help. But he needs to be able to give it, because JD Nielson won't wear a uniform he's not entitled to in the eyes and minds of the people who don't know the truth, and by letting him put it on her, she's standing there for him by proxy.

The last thing JD does is to slip the Medal's case out of its pocket in the garment bag. She pulls herself up straight -- as straight as she can -- as he fastens the blue band around her neck and lets the star settle at her throat. She never asked for it. Never wanted it. (Barely remembers having been awarded it.) It's so light, for something so heavy. 

When JD steps back, he has his eyes fixed on hers, and what he does takes her breath away; he straightens that last perpetual half-inch of slouch out of his spine, and he salutes her as crisp as if he'd never walked away.

She returns it. And it should be laughable -- her, the battered wreck of the girl she'd been back then; him in nothing more than a pair of dress pants and a whole sea of ink -- but today's a day for paying their respects to the ghosts of all the things that made them. And he finishes getting dressed, and he offers her his arm, and she threads her fingers through his elbow's curve and together they go to bear their witness.

Security's a pain (there is _nothing new_ under the sun) and the church has steps not ramps (the ADA doesn't cover religious institutions) but for the first time in a long time, she feels all right to take her time getting to where she's going without feeling the pressure of eyes on the back of her neck (no _oh God why won't she just get out of my way_ , not here, not now). They sit in the back. Less distance to walk. Less chance someone will see JD and think _isn't that, he looks familiar --_ (Although JD -- somehow -- looks nothing like Jack O'Neill did at the calendar age JD is now; Cammie's seen pictures.) 

At the grave-side ceremony, they hang back, too. Grass is uncertain footing, and that's the excuse JD would use if anyone was nosy enough to ask, but she knows he doesn't want to get too close; superstition is a powerful thing, and no man should have to walk over the top of his own grave. The honor-guard hands the flag to Sam. Most senior member of O'Neill's last commissioned unit (although both JD _and_ Sam have said, separately and never in each others' hearing, that Teal'c was Jack O'Neill's true second-in-command; Sam told JD she tried to get word to Master Teal'c, though, and nobody could find him in time). Cammie feels a moment of disconnect, because of course O'Neill has no family-of-record (parents both dead, no siblings; she knows) and of _course_ neither she nor JD qualifies to receive the flag. But there's a part of her that still thinks one of them should, and she thinks that's another reason why they're all the way back here in the crowd.

And then it's _as God has chosen to call our brother from this life to Himself, we commit his body to the earth, for we are dust and unto dust we shall return_ (JD snorts, beside her; she doesn't ask) and dammit, _Taps_ always makes her mist up, don't matter who it's being played for. The crowd turns into smaller knots. A few people step up to the coffin to say their goodbyes. (Coffin's metal, not wood. She can't see any hinges. Story, there, but for later.)

"Come on," JD says, at her elbow, soft and quiet. "Let's go say what needs to be said." 

The Marines salute her as she and JD approach. She's getting better at releasing JD's arm, transfering her cane to her other hand as she sees someone start to move, and saluting back, all in one crisp motion. She's been doing it all afternoon; the medal hanging at her throat still feels uncomfortable (like someone else's skin, like something she doesn't feel she deserves) but it's honor to an institution, not honor to her. She'll take the respect shown for the medal; she's strong enough now (still) to bear the responsibility of its covenant. 

When they reach the coffin, JD stretches out a hand and brushes his fingertips along its surface, and what he says -- low enough so that only she can hear -- is _thank you_. She's trying to think of what she can say -- _thank you_ or _I'm sorry_ or _I hope you can finally get a chance to rest_ \-- when JD looks up, and his eyes fix on someone a couple dozen feet away, and he goes utterly, shell-shocked still.

Cammie follows his eyes, automatically. (Hit the ground and duck and cover, or reach for whatever's at hand and charge in to attack; he's not precisely coding _threat_ but she doesn't know what it _is_ , and he's usually better at cueing her as to whether or not he's identified a danger, but she has already decided she won't rely on any of their usual reads today; unreliable.) The man JD is staring at is standing next to Sam. (For a second, Cammie thinks it's Sam that JD is staring at, but no; Sam's not precisely a _frequent_ guest -- too much guilt, too much discomfort -- but she's no stranger, either.) He's familiar-looking in the nagging way that tells her she _does_ know who he is, just can't place it. Brown hair, with the sunlight glinting on the first few strands of silver threading through it. Glasses, in an era where laser surgery is simple and painless and cheap. Dark suit, ill-fitting -- or no; the suit fits him just fine, he just looks like he's forgotten how to wear one. 

He's staring back at JD, like he's just seen a ghost, like he's just seen a dead man walking. And then Sam bumps into him, and he's moving, quick sharp motions that speak of _trauma_ and _distress_ and _oh my God I am surrounded by people and I am this close to lifting one of those rifles and shooting my way clear_ and Cammie thinks of front lines and hidden wars and knows she's staring at Daniel Jackson.

" _Jesus_ ," JD says, and she knows he can see the danger too. Of course he can see it. He's probably seen Daniel Jackson at his best and at his worst, at his craziest (pretty damn crazy, from what she's managed to piece together, old gossip and JD's stories-that-aren't-stories and Sam's tales) and at his most serene. And he was in love with Daniel Jackson for part-or-all of it (still is, deep down), and he'd never (she knows) thought to see him again, and in a small secret way was glad of it. 

"Yes," she says -- _I see it too; go do what you need to do_ \-- and then it's too late, because Daniel and Sam have closed the gap between them.

She can see JD moving (putting himself between Daniel and her; unconscious, she knows, but if his sentries are identifying this man as a threat, it means he's so much worse than she can see in just a glance, and JD with his intimate knowledge can see how deep the damage runs), but she's watching Daniel. He stumbles up against the coffin, places his palms flat. Head bowed, and there's something on his face that she can't read, and she turns away to talk to Sam, to let him have a moment of privacy.

Sam's watching Daniel too. "I forgot to warn him," she says, and Cammie knows that what she really means is _I forgot that JD Nielson and Jack O'Neill are the same person_ , and it's all right. 

"It's okay," Cammie says. (Out of the corner of her eye: Daniel's head snapping up, and the short-shock-bird-twitch motions of a man who feels threatened and can't even say _why_ , and dear sweet _Lord_ they have to get this man out of here.) She's careful, so careful, to keep her body language neutral (Daniel will see it either way, and sweet Lord in Heaven _what have they been doing to this man for the past ten years_?) as she gestures with her chin in the direction of the exit. "Come on."

Sam bites her lip. "You know I --" 

_Appreciate you being here_ , or _am sorry to get all of this in your way_ , maybe, or even just _can handle this on my own_. "Take it as read," Cammie says. 

"Good to see you, Carter," JD says -- one quick rush -- "and for _crying out loud_ let's get him out of this crowd."

Sam blinks. Really _seeing_ Daniel for the first time today, or maybe it's just the snap and hiss in JD's voice, command _and_ authority all at once when JD is usually so careful to avoid sounding like he's ever given an order in his life around Sam. "Daniel?" she asks. (Cautious like she's juggling bombs.)

Daniel rounds on Sam. "I'm _fine_!" he snaps, and yeah, no, he is _really_ fucking not. "I'm tired! I'm stressed! My best friend is dead! I've had a really long trip! And I --" He catches himself -- Cammie sees him do it, and that means he's at least aware of how bad he is, somewhere deep down, and that's a good sign but it isn't gonna help him right this very. "And I don't know who these people are," he says, quieter this time. "I'm sorry. I'm sure they're friends of yours. I've been -- away. For a very long time. I'm sorry, um." His eyes dart to JD, then settle on Cammie as the easier option. "Colonel." 

Family's got a lot of practice with talking leapers off the edge. She knows how to make herself sound and feel like down-home and just-folks and _not a threat_. "No offense taken, Dr. Jackson," she says. (Calm and sedate and _can I get you a glass of sweet tea? Just sit right down here and never you mind the part of your brain that's trying to kill you of adrenaline poisoning right now._ ) "Sam's always had Yankee manners. We did meet once, but it was a long time ago, and I wasn't at my best." She holds out her hand. "I'm Cameron Mitchell."

She sees him take the name, make the connection. "Oh, God," he says. "I -- Look. Colonel. I am, I am so, so --" 

He tries to pull away, but she's got his hand in hers already (quick touch; keeping his hands tied up with manners will just send him further over the edge, but she thinks he needs the connection -- _look, warm, human, not a goddamn threat_). "You are very tired, Dr. Jackson," she says, firmly. (Man looks like he hasn't slept in a month of Sundays. Can't be helping.) "And you came a long way for your friend's funeral." _Yes, I know where you came from._ "And it's 'Cammie'." She thinks for a split second, tries to decide how to play this. JD, beside her, isn't giving her any cues. He's probably a bit shocky himself. This is _not_ their finest goddamn day. "This is my business parter, JD Nielson," she decides on. They can always refine the definitions later. 

They're still standing over the coffin, and they might have hung back and waited a bit before stepping to the grave-side, but there's still people around them who haven't gotten their time; one of them is coming up behind Daniel right now, and as she watches, Daniel comes up on the balls of his feet and his hands twitch. _Hell_ , she thinks, bracing herself for disaster, and then JD steps forward -- and between; still between her and Daniel, and she wonders if he even realizes that he's placed her further up the protection hierarchy than Daniel -- wonders if he even realizes he's trying to protect her _from_ Daniel -- and says something in Daniel's ear that she can't hear.

"Come on," JD says. "Car's this way."

JD's good at chivvying people along and them not noticing, when he wants. He orders Cammie, with his eyes, to start walking. And yeah, okay, there's a part of her that itches at turning her back on Daniel right now, but she'll trust JD's read of the situation and anyway, Sam's right there behind. Touchy -- way he's looking right now, Daniel's more like to bolt for the trees -- but it must be the right thing. By the time they get to the car, Daniel's calmed down enough (still wild around the eyes and around the edges, but _calmer_ ) to protest something about how he was going to walk back to his hotel and he doesn't want to be any trouble.

And yeah, no, JD isn't going to let that happen. Cammie opens her door (passenger seat; all their cars are switchable through three settings, from 'normal American' to 'pedals are ghost-whisper sensitive' to 'fully controllable with hands and voice', so she can drive them no matter what kind of a day she's having, but in practice it's usually JD behind the wheel) and leans herself in the crook between the door and the body of the car, watching JD herd Daniel and Sam into the backseat. Like a Border collie, for all he doesn't actually nudge them. 

Once the back door is shut, JD looks at her. The crook of his head means _do you mind?_ and the lift of her eyebrows say _don't be fucking stupid_ and the snort he gives her is _you'd have killed me if I hadn't asked_. 

Cammie hurts. And it's differing types of pain, which is the most annoying: hip aches from Tuesday's fall, head still sluggishly pulsing from the knock to it and never you _mind_ Momma always said anyone hitting her on the head would break their hand; thighs burning from the _assfucker_ shoes she's gotta wear with this getup, the small of her back snarling at her from all the standing and sitting and standing even though nobody would've thought less of her for sitting down clear through. They're just body-hurts, though. One of JD's people has a soul-hurt. And it's the kind of soul-hurt that needs a safe space to take it out and look at it.

So she puts on her very best manners (not company manners; not quite family manners, but something much like; _here we are and here you are and we're not prettying ourselves up, so why should you feel you have to?_ ), and she bickers with JD the whole way there, for fun and for show (he threatens to stop at McDonald's just to see what she'll say in front of Daniel and Sam; she threatens to shoot him, of course), and they don't need to talk it out loud between them to know they're both going to segue, smooth and unobtrusive, into detailing all the condo's security as they encounter it so Daniel's subconscious has a chance to agree that _maybe he's safe_. (She'd give her eye-teeth to know _what the goddamn hell triggered him so bad_ , but combat stress doesn't follow any set of rules; be easier if it did.) 

JD goes into more detail than she was expecting. Not to the point of showing Daniel where the gun-safe is (she'd have stopped him if he looked like he was going to, but he wouldn't have; he's not stupid), but he goes above and beyond in explaining all the things they never talk about in front of a guest. (Not even Sam; she's looking a little startled, as though wondering what _else_ she missed.) It's poor form to let your paranoia show for visitors, after all. (All right, practicality-and-preparation; it's not paranoia if you really do know _for sure_ there are megalomaniacal snakes and evil sentient Lego blocks and soul-sucking space vampires out there.) But if the visitors know about the snakes and the Lego and the vampires, she guesses they won't think they're anti-government survivalist _nuts_. (She's pretty sure their general contractor back in the Springs thinks they're batshit insane, although their architect just likes the challenge. Architects are crazy.) 

And then they're fully inside and settled, and Daniel's been given the quick-tour, and Cammie's relaxing. Home is home: twenty-foot ceilings and exposed-brick walls and hardwood floors, steel and bulletproof glass everywhere, and it might look like _Architectural Digest_ mated with _Soldier of Fortune_ , but it's theirs. She drags Sam into the master bedroom under cover of getting her something to change into (imp of the perverse makes her pick her ugliest jog-suit; God knows why she still has it). "Spill," Cammie demands. "What the hell did they do to that poor boy?"

Sam gestures, helplessly. "I don't _know_ ," she says. "I haven't seen him in -- a while. Once or twice, when I had to go to Atlantis."

Cammie blinks. "You mean to tell me he ain't set foot back on Earth for _ten years_?"

"Yeah," Sam says. She looks wretched. Long day for her, too, and she's buried a friend same's the rest of them, and Cammie suddenly feels ashamed; she's known for years it was Jack O'Neill Sam had her _thing_ for, and they managed to resolve it -- somehow, and Cammie doesn't know how, and Sam won't tell her -- but this has to be rough on her. Missed it, drowned out by the noise of the _other_ walking wounded. So Cammie makes an apology-face, and Sam waves it off. "Sorry. I just --"

"You go on and sit down in the living room," Cammie says, firmly. "You can send himself on in to help me get out of this thing; he knows how to do it."

Knows how to look at her without flinching, is more like it, whereas Sam won't. But she's not going to hide away her scars behind long sleeves and bulky pants. She's perfectly _capable_ of wearing clothes when she has to, but at home it's shorts and tank tops and a knit kimono or sweater kept on hand to throw over her when she gets cold, and JD has been known to buy a double pack of boxer-briefs and say he needed more officewear. She thinks that behaving like they're at home (simple subtle unconscious cues) is more important than company manners. Besides, most of what she has here is formal-for-a-meeting or formal-for-a-night-out, and she isn't putting on another goddamn suit and she thinks Daniel (and Sam) would freak out more about the leathers.

So she sits down on the side of the bed and peels off the opaque flesh-colored tights she's wearing (not quite regulation, but the ink isn't, either, and she doesn't want to show it off when she's in uniform). Into the tank top and jeans shorts (not quite her Daisy Dukes, but not down-to-the-knee, either) it is, and she's laying the uniform out on the bed when JD comes in. (JD will take the uniform down to the building concierge, who'll have it dry-cleaned and pressed and back to them by tomorrow; this place might be built for the paranoid, but it's built for the _wealthy_ paranoid, and it's taken Cammie a while to get used to the idea that they're wealthy, but they _are_.) He's got his shirt off already and slung over his shoulder; God knows where his tie is. He's undoing the button of his pants. She's proud of him; he kept his clothes on for _twenty whole minutes_ past making it through the front door.

"Goatfuck," JD opines, jerking his chin in a way that says he means this whole messy situation. "I'm sorry. I know you just want to get in the tub and ignore the world, not have to play gracious hostess."

Cammie sighs. "Things to do, people to take care of," she says. "He ain't an example of 'fed up, fucked up, and far from home', I don't know what is."

"Yeah." JD rubs a hand over his face. "Yeah. I want to fix it. Took one goddamn look at him and it was like ten years went away boom. It's fucking with me."

Of course it is, the poor baby, and there's a whole host of unresolved wanting all tied up besides, and she knows two things: she should counsel him to walk away, and there's no way she will or he would. So she just nods. "One of us should tell him he ain't travelin' back by himself," she says. "Jumpy like that, he'll trip somebody's radar and wind up in some TSA black pit from now until the end of time. Or until the SGC comes to bail him out, and wouldn't he just love to explain _that_? I'm allowed to put the uniform back on to travel --" She is; she's entitled by law and custom to wear her uniform and her medals any damn time she pleases, as long as it wouldn't bring shame, where other retirees aren't. But she doesn't. For this, though, she would. "We can get him back home safe. He got anywhere to go?"

"I don't know," JD says. It sounds helpless, like he's overwhelmed with problems to solve, but Cammie knows he's just working things out inside his head. "I'll find out. Right now, the best thing to do is to convince him it's okay to get some _goddamn sleep_."

"Drug his food, if I have to," Cammie promises, and grits her teeth and thumps on out of the bedroom.

Sam (sitting on the couch, next to Daniel) sucks air at seeing her (tattoos down the legs don't hide her scars, weren't designed to; they work _with_ them, turn them into art and memory, and she knows Sam won't ever understand). Daniel's just shocked. Shocked, and a little bit angry: at himself, for staring; at the world, for doing this to her; at _her_ , for making him feel like he has to hide how shocked and angry he is, that brief-flick instant of _why can't she just --_. 

But Cammie spends a lot of time in the wide and hostile world being invisible or being the circus freak, and she waits to see what he'll do and how he'll react, and when he calms his face and lets it go -- doesn't apologize, doesn't let the shame set in -- she smiles one of her sunshine smiles at him and says, mild as mother's milk, "Tragic to see you been crippled between the bedroom an' the living room, Samantha Eileen Carter, that you couldn't even stand up long enough to make sure Dr. Jackson had something to drink. Fetch you something, Dr. Jackson?"

"Um," Daniel says. He's staring at her, and she can see the hamster turning its little wheel in his head: shouldn't make demands, shouldn't ask her to do for him (right about now is where most people hit the _for God's sake doesn't the woman know she's crippled?_ and it's better to force the issue up front). "Call me Daniel. Please. And. Um. Water would be fine. You don't have to go to any trouble."

He's swaying in place, back and forth, on the couch. In time with his heartbeat. She thinks he doesn't know he's doing it. "Water it is," she says, firmly, and gets herself off to the kitchen. Over her shoulder, she adds, "Won't be but a few minutes for me to fix us something to eat. Pile of potatoes that need peeling with your name all over them, Samantha Eileen."

When she walks into the kitchen, JD has the refrigerator door open, and he's staring blindly into it. She reaches past him, grabs a bottle of water out of the refrigerator. (Close to empty. They don't keep much here, just nonperishables -- the concierge will order in a delivery for them of their standard staples if they call ahead when they know they're coming, but this time she only asked for a few days' supply and it's not enough for four people for long. No worries. Grilled cheese sandwiches and fresh-made potato chips will do for lunch; if Daniel and Sam are staying for dinner, she'll call downstairs and they'll send someone out for groceries; it disturbs her to have hot-and-cold running on-call _servants_ who'll snap to the minute she snaps her fingers, but she can't deny it's sometimes convenient. She assuages her guilt by baking cookies for the concierge staff whenever she can.) So she pushes the bottle of water into JD's hands, turns him around, and gives him a nudge. "Go on," she says. "Go talk to him."

"Mitchell, I --"

"I said get," she says, brisk and bracing. (He'll hear the sympathy behind it.) If he lets this go, if he lets it build up, there'll never be a time for it. Start as you mean to go on.

But he comes back a few minutes later. "Out cold," he says, and transfers his gaze to Sam. "You gonna get around to telling me what brought us all to the party, here, Carter?"

And Sam makes a face -- tired of telling the story, Cammie thinks, and too damn bad, because she's the only way JD will be able to learn it and everyone in this kitchen knows this for a fact -- and hems and haws (trying to work her way around to seeing clear to tell JD and Cammie things they aren't technically cleared to know). But they both stay quiet, while Sam shuffles things around inside her head, and finally she sighs and nods and tells them.

Foothold situation (Cammie can hear the capital F in Sam's voice when she talks about it) at the Pentagon. There's a shield around the Gate, to prevent all manners of nasty from getting through, Cammie knows (O'Neill told JD and JD told her and O'Neill knew damn well she was getting the information but all three of them pretended anyway, and she realizes that with General O'Neill gone, JD is going to have to find some other source, and she thinks she foresees bullying Sam into a lot more visits). It stops Replicators, too. But all it takes is one piece for a whole army to rise up. (Evil sentient _self-reproducing_ Lego.) 

Earth has a defense shield now (adapted from Lantean technology); it hadn't been on. (Sucks more power than JD sucks dick on a good weekend.) It's set up -- had been set up -- to activate when sensors saw something above a certain size heading for the atmosphere. Now it's on constantly, because the Asurans had packaged a couple of blocks up and sent them down as a meteorite, and they'd aimed at the Pentagon first.

O'Neill had held the line, and he'd saved a hell of a lot of people in doing so, and he'd bought the time necessary for _Persephone_ (will _whoever names the goddamn ships buy a fucking clue already?_ ) to come around far enough in orbit to deploy the Death Ray. (Sam says that's what it's actually named. JD says he bets O'Neill named it.) But O'Neill had been hurt too badly by the end, and from all the things Sam's not saying, all the way Sam's choked up and evading saying anything, Cammie thinks (JD thinks too; she can read it on his face) that O'Neill might not have died of physical wounds alone. (Closed coffin. No viewing. She bets the coffin isn't made out of iron or steel, but something they've found or discovered that will block Replicator parts from ever rising up again. If there are any in that coffin. No way to know.) 

"And I have to get back," Sam finally says, catching sight of the time and sighing heavily. "My flight leaves in two hours, and they'll hold the transport for me if I'm late, but I don't want to push it too far. There's -- a lot of things I need to be doing." She stands up. Looks out over the top of the pass-through between kitchen and living/dining room, down through to where Daniel is out cold on the couch. She looks so _tired_ , and worn-through, and worn-out, and ready for a nice long rest. And Cammie knows she won't get it. "I hate to dump him here on you like this."

It's not _precisely_ that Sam's passive-aggressive, but that _is_ a request for permission to do just that, and Cammie knows it. "You go on," she says. "Don't wanna keep the little green men waiting. We'll make sure he gets fed and walked." She stands up too, more slowly than Sam did, and winces. Yeah, maybe it's time to stop biting the bullet and go ahead and take more goddamn painkillers before JD can notice and bite her damn fool head off. 

Sam hesitates. "Are you sure?" she asks. _Pro forma_ only. And that's interesting, Cammie thinks. Sam loves Daniel -- Cammie can tell -- and right now the last thing _in the universe_ she wants is to adopt Daniel Jackson's problems as her own, which means two things: one, Sam is hurting worse than Cammie thought, and two, Sam's looking for someone to tell her that it's no sin to be selfish and tend her own hurts first.

So Cammie makes her voice firm. "Sure as sin and next year's taxes, and don't you worry about it," she says. "We'll make your excuses for you when he wakes up. Get that uniform back on and get."

And a little while later, it's Cammie and JD and a sleeping Daniel Jackson left in the living room. JD turns around from locking up the doors again after Sam's departure. For a second he looks utterly distracted and utterly _other_ , and then he frowns, shakes his head, and looks at her. He says, "Take the goddamn drugs."

Life returns to normal so quickly. "Because telling me what to do works so goddamn often," she says -- have to register at least a token protest or he'll want to check her for fever -- and stumps off to the bedroom to find the goddamn pill bottles.

When she comes back, JD's right where she left him, standing next to the couch, looking down at Daniel and frowning. Man's motionless like death, like he hasn't gotten a good night's sleep in a whole host of forever, and they haven't been keeping their voices down but she hasn't heard him stir once. She nods her chin to Daniel's sleeping body. "Wake him up and get him into the guest room?" she asks.

JD shakes his head. "No, that's his dead-to-the-world breathing, just let him sleep it off," he says, absently. Then he looks up and sighs. "You didn't sign up for this. You don't have to do this." 

Cammie snorts. "Do what?" she says. "Be a decent human bein'? Sorry to disappoint you, Nielson, comes with the territory." She makes her way over to the couch, looks down at the man on it. Asleep, he almost looks peaceful. Younger, definitely, and the lines around his mouth and eyes have smoothed out. He's still got his glasses on. "Am I gonna wake him if I take off his glasses and cover him up, at least?" She'd really rather not startle Daniel out of sleep; he's not armed and there's nothing within reach that could be used as a weapon (other than her cane, and she'll fight him for it) but that doesn't mean things couldn't get ugly.

"No," JD says again, but he's back to being a thousand miles away. "Not if he's decided you're safe enough to sleep around." 

She nods. Reaches out and slides the glasses off Daniel's face, folds them neatly and places them on the side-table so they'll be in the first place he looks for them when he wakes up. Takes down the afghan that's thrown over the back of the couch and shakes it out (this one is Cindy Lou's, which of course means it's every shade of radioactive-neon yarn known to mankind, but it keeps the living room from being a fake showpiece). She drapes it over Daniel, lightly, and doesn't tuck it in around the edges. JD was right; Daniel doesn't stir.

He really is sweet-looking in sleep, she thinks, and resists the urge to smooth a hand over his hair. "He as bad as I think he is?" she asks. JD will know.

JD sighs, supple and shifting. "Yes. No. I don't know. I don't know anything. We haven't exactly been exchanging Christmas cards for the past twelve years." He interlaces his fingers, folds them inside-out, rises up on his toes and reaches for the ceiling. Wanders over to the window and stares out of it, but Cammie knows he isn't seeing a thing. "I don't know whether I want to kick him out this very minute and run screaming in the other direction, or lock him in here for the next month and go beat some sense into the people who let him get like this and didn't notice."

And oh, there are layers and _layers_ there. Possessive ( _he's mine_ ) and protective ( _and you can't have him_ , for whatever value of 'you') and defensive ( _I cut ties with him because I had to, and I don't know if I could handle having to do it again_ ); anger at O'Neill ( _let him run away, didn't move heaven and earth to get him back somewhere you could keep an eye on him_ ) and anger at himself for having the anger (because of course he would understand why O'Neill had let Daniel go, if Daniel had said he wanted to). Wanting, and wanting not to want, and wanting to tend and wanting to _help_ and wanting the whole set of issues to _go the fuck away_ so he doesn't have to deal with them. 

Cammie's heart breaks for him. (Her baby. Got some of what he wanted out of this strange second life, but never all of it, and there are some things you can make yourself stop wanting and some things you can't.) 

"So, we'll let him take a nap," she says. "Then food, maybe a shower, more sleep, some more food. Figure out what he needs after that." She pauses. She doesn't have to watch how she says things, not around JD -- they've come too far for that -- but some things should come out right anyway. "I don't mind tending to him a while, if you want me to."

Translation, _I don't mind tending to him a while if you can't bring yourself to_ , and she knows JD takes her meaning -- ten years partners, and by now when one of them sneezes the other blows their nose, and if JD's not capable of doing something he can leave it to her and it'd be just like he did it himself. Because JD can't just walk away, can't leave Daniel Jackson to his nightmares and to the insides of his own head, without taking some action to try to help. But that doesn't mean he wants to do it himself, and it doesn't mean he thinks Daniel would take it from him.

"No," JD says. "No. I'm all right. I'll be all right." He shakes it off, turns from the window, smiles at her. (Beautiful.) "Wouldn't want to inflict him on you alone, anyway. He's a fucking awful patient. Probably disappear in the middle of the night and we'll never see him again." 

Part of him that's hoping for it, she knows. Part of him that'd die to see it. He's being pulled in six different directions, and looking at him it comes clear -- suddenly -- what part of the problem and the source of his anguish is, out of the same way she always puts together the source of his hurts: from the negative-space shape of all the footprints they leave.

"It's all right, you know," she says. "We buried Jack O'Neill today. That doesn't mean you have to step on into his shoes."

She's braced for it. She will call him on his shit left, right, and center (and he does the same for her, and it's why they've both grown up a hell of a lot in the past ten years and she doesn't mean 'gotten older') but that doesn't mean it's always _safe_ to. Even odds something that pointed will kick off a fight they'll still be waging come _Christmas_. But his shoulders stiffen, then soften, and when he says, "Fuck you, Mitchell," it's weary capitulation: _yeah, okay, you got me._

"If you ask pretty," she says, absent-minded antiphon. Looks down at Daniel again. Still sleeping. Still peaceful, and calm, and looking at him you'd never know he's spent the past twenty years on the front lines of a war, any more than you'd know by looking at JD that he spent thirty-five years there and then another ten trying to figure out how to come home, and there's not much a Mitchell woman doesn't know about how to heal her wounded. And if he's not hers, well, JD _is_ , and Daniel is JD's -- the part of JD that came from Jack O'Neill, at least, and keeping one piece of that faith doesn't mean he has to pick up all of it, and it all works out in the wash. 

So she picks up her cane from where she'd rested it against the side of the couch, and she limps on into the kitchen, where their laptops are waiting for them. (Where she'll be able to hear it when Daniel wakes up.) "Come on," she says. "Plenty of hours left in the day still. Time to get some work done."


End file.
